Silent Voice
by Qw
Summary: Wings, water, and ice: Rinoa contemplates Siren and Squall. i think she always knew she was the odd one out...


__

Silent Voice

AN: A double challenge for me -- prose and Rinoa. I've been too distracted with Kingdom Hearts to fact-check this against canon -- if I inadvertently abuse poetic (prosic?) license too much do let me know (politely? please?) with a review. 

* * *

I might hate my father, but I cannot wish (anymore) that he were dead.

The Forest Owls were important to me. They were the biggest thing I'd ever been part of... they were resistance, they were nothing my father had ever or would ever condone.

Then I met him.

Cold eyes fell from the shooting star to me, and I smiled and pointed at the descending spark of light. It was a formal ball and his noble profile drew me -- but it was also nothing new. I was only killing time till the Headmaster showed up anyways. Why not flirt, have a little fun? Why not dance?

And we did. He'd started out nervous, stepped on my feet a few times, tried to run away when one couple we collided with sent us rude stares and a sharp comment. 

He's more comfortable facing off a legion of Galbadians than one girl in a formal dress...

...as I've seen too many times.

I'm the same age as the others, more or less. I feel younger. Because I barely know enough to protect myself in a fight, partly, and they've been soldiers since they were children, yes. They'd all be assured and businesslike before that legion, where I'd panic -- I wouldn't even be there in the first place. But there's more.

In spite of Selphie's grin, of Irvine's cheerful flirting, of Zell's hyperactive cheer, of even that dry sense of humor Quistis has and Squall tries to hide -- despite all their moments of positivity, up till just a little while ago I was the only one who could laugh without crying somewhere inside.

Even in that first summer when I met Seifer... there was something different about the way he smiled. I called it maturity, dashing tall-blonde-and-handsome charisma, and thought I was in love with it for a while. When I first discovered what he'd done on all those training missions -- the blood that had been washed out of those gloves -- I couldn't help a shudder when that leather ran down my cheek.

I called it romance and let it go.

My father had no problem with Seifer as a potential employee, a candidate to be one of the elite SeeDs, a GF-enhanced soldier to guard him if he needed it. As the romantic interest of his little girl, though, Seifer didn't measure up. Too low class, an orphaned soldier, for the likes of us. But even if that weren't a problem -- he was too hard, too cynical for a summer fling for soft, delicate me; too much blood dripped invisibly off his hands even when they rested on my waist to lead me through the steps of the latest dance. 

I haven't seen my father long enough or privately enough to know what he thinks of Squall. I don't want to. I'm nearly eighteen and he has no say in my choices. Especially I don't want to admit to myself that though an arrogant, controlling bastard he may be, he might also be right. 

Right now, there is a Guardian Force living in my mind, lending me the strength to fight alongside the man I love and the people I'm not sure whether or not to call friends. She feeds off of my memories, and inadvertently gives me the choice of what I want to write down to remind myself to remember.

I could stay passive, put down the diary I have kept since I was nine, hide it away somewhere I'll never remember to look again. I could live in the moment as the Commander's girlfriend, gradually taking in the skill to fight and learning it as deep-down instinct, somewhere beneath memory, fighting beside them, try to make it as a SeeD someday. I could ignore the sorceress power within me, use it only as a weapon and not a piece of history that shapes me. I could forget my father and everything but the now, everything but Squall and the rest. I could let my eyes go cold until the chill becomes the only thing I know. I could silence that voice inside me that asks if this noble assignments aren't really the murder of soldiers just like the ones I spend my days with. I could free myself from seventeen years of high society and my father's control and choose a new path for my life.

It would be so easy. I'd even forget that I'd done it.

I could become Rinoa Leonhart, that strong cold girl on the Commander's arm.

It would be simpler.

Would it be better?


End file.
